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Find the most relevant Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods for your decision-making problem with our

MCDA Methods Selection Software (MCDA-MSS)

about

The process is structured. As the tool walks you through, you provide answers to the questions you see below.
The questions are grouped in four sections:
1. Problem typology: Defines the type and structure of the decision-making problem
2. Preference model: Defines what type of model you would like to apply
3. Elicitation of preferences: Defines the type, modality and frequency of model preferences
4. Exploitation of the preference relation induced by the preference model: Defines the strategy used to derive and enrich the decision recommendation

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MCDA methods

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key decision-making features

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simple user interface

Find your MCDA method

Here is our intuitive and interactive set of questions. Answering them will lead you to a subset of methods relevant to your problem. Under each question you can find its description, while the description of an answer appears when you move the mouse on it.

Enjoy your journey with the MCDA-MSS!

Your recommended method(s) will automatically appear at the bottom.

The numbers in brackets next to each answer indicate the number of methods that will be recommended if you choose such answer. Please note that this a dynamic process, so the number changes according to the combination of answers that you will give.

Section 1: Here you can define how the problem is framed by (i) choosing the type of decision-making challenge under consideration and (ii) describing the criteria used to assess the alternatives.

Problem statement
What type of decision recommendation is requested?
Order of alternatives
What order of alternatives is requested?
Scale leading the recommendation
What scale leading the recommendation is requested?
Order of classes
What order of classes is requested?
Scale leading the recommendation
What scale leading the recommendation is requested?
Cardinality
What cardinality of classes is required?
Type of clustering
What type of clustering is required?
Type of not ordered clustering
What type of not ordered clusters is requested?
Type of ordered clustering
What type of order of clusters is requested?
Cardinality
What cardinality of alternatives is required?
Set of alternatives
What is the nature of the problem in relation to the alternatives that constitute the set?
Criteria structure
What is the structure of the criteria used for the assessment?
Evaluation of alternatives on the criteria
What is the type of performance of the criteria?
Type of deterministic performances
What is the type of exact performances?
Type of uncertain performances
What is the type of uncertain performances?
Type of performance
What is the type of performance of an alternative on a criterion per se?
Type of performance
What is the type of performance of an alternative on a criterion with respect to the performance of another alternative on the same criterion?
Criteria preference direction
What is the knowledge of the preference for the values of each criterion?
Type of the known order of preference direction
What is the type of the known order of preference for the criteria?
Criteria set completeness
What is the completeness status of the criteria set?

Section 2: Here you can define what type of model you would like to apply, accounting for (i) how the input data is used by the method, (ii) comparison of criteria performances, (iii) compensation between the criteria performances, (iv) aggregation of the criteria evaluations, and (v) the capacity of the MCDA methods to deal with inconsistent preference information.

Scale used by the method(s)
How should the input information/performance data be used by the method(s)?
Qualitative-based method(s) type
What type of method that only considers the qualitative information from the criteria performances should be selected?
Quantitative-based method(s) type
What type of method that considers the quantitative information from the criteria performances should be selected?
Performance-based method(s) type
What type of performance-based method should be selected?
Pairwise comparison-based method(s) type
What type of pairwise comparison-based method should be selected?
Relative-based method(s) type
What type of method that considers the relative information from the criteria performances should be selected?
Relative-based ratio-scale method(s) type
What type of method that considers the relative information in ratio terms from the criteria performances should be selected?
Comparison of performances
How should the comparison of the performances on the criteria be performed?
Weights of the criteria
Should weights be used to differentiate the role of criteria in the aggregation procedure?
Per-criterion pairwise comparison thresholds
Should pairwise comparison thresholds be used to model the imperfect knowledge of criteria performances and/or to characterize the preference sensitivity of the DM when comparing two alternatives on a single criterion?
Interactions between criteria
Should interactions between criteria be considered to reflect a non-additive nature of preferences?
Criteria profiles
Should criteria profiles not corresponding to the considered alternatives be used to derive a decision recommendation?
Compensation between criteria
How much can the good performance on a criterion compensate for the bad performance on another criterion?
Aggregation of multiple criteria evaluations
Should the performances on multiple criteria be aggregated by the method(s) to provide the decision recommendation?
Type of aggregation of multiple criteria evaluations
What type of approach should be used for the aggregation of multiple criteria to provide the decision recommendation?
MCDA method(s) inconsistency management
Should the MCDA method(s) be capable to handle inconsistent preference information?
Type of MCDA method(s) inconsistency management
What type of inconsistent preference information should the MCDA method(s) be capable to handle?
Type of only violation of dominance
What type of violation of dominance as preference information should the MCDA method(s) be capable to accept?
Type of only other types of inconsistency not including dominance
What type of inconsistencies, not including dominance, as preference information should the MCDA method(s) be capable to accept?
Type of violation of dominance and other types of inconsistency
What type of inconsistencies, including dominance, as preference information should the MCDA method(s) be capable to accept?

Section 3: Here you can define what type of preferences information you can provide, how and with what frequency.

Type of preferences elicitation
What type of preference information is provided?
Specify criteria weights
Do you want to specify the weights of the criteria?
Type of weights
What type of weights should be used?
Type of precise weights
What type of precise weights should be used?
Type of relative importance coefficients weights
What type of relative importance coefficients weights should be used?
Type of imprecise weights
What type of imprecise weights should be used?
Type of imprecise weights per-criterion
What type of imprecise weights per-criterion should be used?
Type of imprecise weights based on pairwise comparison ratio
What type of imprecise weights based on pairwise comparison ratio should be used?
Specify per-criterion pairwise comparison thresholds
Do you want to specify the per-criterion pairwise comparison thresholds?
Type of pairwise comparison thresholds
What type of pairwise comparison thresholds should be used?
Type of indifference pairwise comparison thresholds
What type of indifference pairwise comparison thresholds should be used?
Type of preference pairwise comparison thresholds
What type of preference pairwise comparison thresholds should be used?
Type of veto pairwise comparison thresholds
What type of veto pairwise comparison thresholds should be used?
Specify interactions between criteria
Do you want to specify the information on the criteria interactions?
Type of criteria interactions
What type of interactions should be handled?
Type of positive and negative criteria interactions
What type of positive and negative interactions between the criteria should be handled?
Type of antagonistic criteria interactions
What type of antagonistic interactions between the criteria should be handled?
Specify criteria profiles
Do you want to specify the criteria profiles?
Type of criteria profiles
Which type of criteria profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of characteristic profiles
Which type of characteristic profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of single characteristic profiles
Which type of single characteristic profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of multiple characteristic profiles
Which type of multiple characteristic profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of boundary profiles
Which type of boundary profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of single boundary profiles
Which type of single boundary profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of multiple boundary profiles
Which type of multiple boundary profiles should be used to lead the sorting of alternatives?
Type of profiles
Which type of profiles should be used to lead the ranking of alternatives?
Type of indirect preferences
What type of indirect preferences would you like to account for?
Type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes
What type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes would you like to account for?
Type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes at the global level
What type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes at the global level would you like to consider?
Type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes at the local level
What type of assignment of reference alternatives to classes at the local level would you like to consider?
Type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on a ratio scale
What type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on a ratio scale would you like to account for?
Type of indirect preferences
What type of indirect preferences would you like to account for?
Type of desired comprehensive values of alternatives
What type of desired comprehensive values of alternatives would you like to account for?
Type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives
What type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives would you like to account for?
Type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives at the global level
What type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives at the global level would you like to account for?
Type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives at the local level
What type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives at the local level would you like to account for?
Type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale
What type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale would you like to account for?
Type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale at the global level
What type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale at the global level would you like to account for?
Type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale at the local level
What type of pairwise comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on an ordinal scale at the local level would you like to account for?
Type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on a ratio scale
What type of comparisons of reference alternatives with respect to intensity of preference expressed on a ratio scale would you like to account for?
Frequency of preference input
With what frequency would you like to provide the preference information?
Confidence level of preferences
Would you like to include a level of confidence when providing the preferences

Section 4: Here you can decide how the preference relation induced by the preference model can be exploited to derive or enhance the decision recommendation.

Type of exploitation of the preference relation induced by the preference model
What type of exploitation of the preference relation induced by the preference model would you like to be performed?
Type of exploitation of the preference model with a univocal recommendation
Would you like the univocal recommendation to be driven by an output variability analysis or not?
Type of preference model(s) for the exploitation
What type of preference model(s) would you like to be used to derive the decision recommendation?
Type of single preference model for the exploitation
What type of single preference model would you like to be used to derive the decision recommendation?
Type of representative single preference model
What type of representative single preference model would you like to be used to derive the decision recommendation?
Type of preference model for the exploitation
What type of preference model(s) would you like to be used to derive the decision recommendation?
Type of output variability analysis
How would you like the output variability analysis to be conducted?
Focus of the output variability analysis
What type of results should be the focus of the output variability analysis?
Focus of the output variability analysis
What type of results should be the focus of the output variability analysis?
You can click this button to see the most selective questions (with increasing number of methods) according to the provided answers.
You can click this button to see the most selective questions in this section (with increasing number of methods) according to the provided answers.

MCDA methods

Once you answer a part or all questions from the four Sections, the method(s) recommended for your decision-making problem will automatically appear in the list below.
If you click on the ⓘ you will see a description of each method with the answers that you chose in bold.
When present, the column “Missed features” shows the decision-making features that you selected and which are not supported by the recommended methods.

Note for users

The users of our MCDA-MSS are envisioned to be:
1. Experienced MCDA users (including teachers) who want to use the tool for educational purposes;
2. MCDA methods developers and researchers who want to test, compare, and comprehend the characteristics of the existing MCDA methods and/or to develop new and more advanced ones;
3. MCDA methods developers and practitioners (including consultants and analysts) who want to support actual DMs in applying these methods in real-life Decision-Making Problems.
Background literature on the features included in MCDA-MSS can be found here and here.

Future updates

“Based on dedicated requests for inclusion and our own selection of valuable candidates, we are planning upcoming updates to our software in consecutive batches (see also Disclaimer 5 below). The first one will include:

Method name Reference
ELECTRE-ScoreClick here
Interval-based PROMETHEE clusteringClick here
PAPRIKAClick here
PROMETHEE-gammaClick here
TOPSIS-hierarchical and non-monotonic criteriaClick here
LSP: logic scoring of preferenceClick here
MAVT – Medium compensation, precise inputClick here
MAVT – Low compensation, precise inputClick here
MAVT – Full compensation, imprecise inputClick here
MAVT – Medium compensation, imprecise inputClick here
MAVT – Low compensation, imprecise inputClick here

Our Contact Information

Asst. Prof. Marco Cinelli1,2,3,4

Assoc. Prof. Miłosz Kadziński1

M.Sc. Grzegorz Miebs1

Prof. Roman Słowiński1

Dr. Michael Gonzalez2

Dr. Peter Burgherr3

1 Laboratory of Intelligent Decision Support Systems
Institute of Computing Science
Poznań University of Technology
2 Piotrowo Street
60-965 Poznań
Poland

2 Environmental Decision Analytics Branch
Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
45268 Cincinnati (OH)
USA

3 Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis
Technology Assessment Group
Paul Scherrer Institut
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

4 Decision Engineering for Sustainability and Resilience (DESIRE) Laboratory
Leiden University College (LUC)
Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University
Anna van Buerenplein 301
2595 DG The Hague
The Netherlands

+31 (0)70 800 9020
(Marco Cinelli)

+48 61 665 30 22
(Miłosz Kadziński)